Friday & Saturday, 28th - 29th August – Brooklyn to Mosman

The Main Event

Finally the months of training either on the trail or trudging up and down the stairwell have come to a head with our first shot at 100km in the 2009 Trailwalker event and we have good reason to be be proud of ourselves because we all made it!

Our finish time of 36 hours and 16 minutes wasn’t quite what we’d set ourselves but considering we lost Nik due to injury a few days before the start  there are no complaints particularly since our fill-in walker, Steve, carried an injury for half the walk that ended up becoming a stress fracture of his foot.

A great big thank you to our support crew of Lynda and Gina for the care you took of us on the trail and behind the scenes catering for us, carting our loads of stuff around and setting up camp so that all we had to worry about was where to flop. Thank you also for patching us up with no thought for your own safety when faced with battered, blistered (and no doubt rank smelling) feet. Without you both it would have been a much tougher hike.

A link to trail directions and trail maps can be found here.

 

 

THE STATS

Start – Cp1
Start Time: 9:31am
Duration: 3:12:54
Finish Time: 12:48pm
Distance: 15.30km
Average Pace: 12.36 min/km
Average Speed: 4.8 km/h

Cp1 - Cp2
Start Time: 12:48pm
Duration: 3:09:52
Finish Time: 4:54pm
Distance: 14.50km
Average Pace: 13.06 min/km
Average Speed: 4.6 km/h

Cp2 – Cp3
Start Time: 5:10pm
Duration: 2:57:42
Finish Time: 8:07pm
Distance: 14.03km
Average Pace: 12.40 min/km
Average Speed: 4.7 km/h

Cp3 – Cp4
Start Time: 10:01pm
Duration: 2:20:55
Finish Time: 12:21am
Distance: 8.37km
Average Pace: 16.50 min/km
Average Speed: 3.6 km/h

Cp4 – Cp5
Start Time: 1:20am
Duration: 2:33:50
Finish Time: 3:53am
Distance: 9.27km
Average Pace: 16.36 min/km
Average Speed: 3.6 km/h

Cp5 - Cp6
Start Time: 5:18am
Duration: 3:49:36
Finish Time: 9:08am
Distance: 12.43km
Average Pace: 18.28 min/km
Average Speed: 3.2 km/h

Cp6 – Cp7
Start Time: 9:46am
Duration: 3:53:23
Finish Time: 1:21pm
Distance: 11.04km
Average Pace: 19.31 min/km
Average Speed: 3.1 km/h

Cp7 – Cp8
Start Time: 3:23pm
Duration: 2:13:42
Finish Time: 5:46pm
Distance: 7.2km
Average Pace: 18.34 min/km
Average Speed: 3.2 km/h

Cp8 – Finish
Start Time: 6:30pm
Duration: 3:17:54
Finish Time: 9:48pm
Distance: 11.34km
Average Pace: 17.27 min/km
Average Speed: 3.4 km/h

Total Time: 27:11:53
Total Distance: 103.48km

For a Google Earth file of this session, click here.

Saturday, 22nd August – Brooklyn to Berowra

Last Chance Training

A relatively easy walk this week after the slog of previous sessions doing only the first two legs from Brooklyn via Cowan to Berowra. We started nice and early meeting up at the favourite Top of the Ridge bakery for a cheese and bacon pie and an apple and cinnamon slice before jumping on a train to Brooklyn with a guest walker, Nico, visiting from France and keen to see a side of Sydney that is probably unknown to many people who actually live here.

We had a little rude awakening in the new start route which takes you up a very steep paved trail only a minutes walk from the Parsley Bay car park that had us warmed up and panting in no time...

A link to trail directions and map for the first leg can be found here and for the second leg here.

 Brekky, Psuedo springtime floral delights and Berowra Waters (yet again, but this time it’s a panorama with fires off in the distance!)

THE STATS

Start – Cp1
Start Time: 6:54am
Duration: 3:14:08
Finish Time: 10:09am
Distance: 14.73km
Average Pace: 13.11 min/km
Average Speed: 4.6 km/h

Cp1 - Cp2
Start Time: 10:09am
Duration: 3:19:08
Finish Time: 1:44pm
Distance: 13.98km
Average Pace: 14.19 min/km
Average Speed: 4.2 km/h

Total Time: 6:34:07
Total Distance: 28.70km

For a Google Earth file of this session, click here.

Monday, 17th August – Brooklyn to Ku-ring-gai

Another First

Coming off the success of our last big walk we decided to go one better with a crack at 50+km and while the finishing stages got a little slower as blisters and fatigue set in (which explains the extra distance on the GPS readings) we reached the end at Ku-ring-gai a little sorer but very pleased.

I used this walk to try out my new BSc compression pants and I don’t know if it was due to the pants or the cheese and bacon meat pie I had for brekkie at Hornsby but the legs felt great for the whole hike and in the words of Ned Flanders, “I felt like I was wearing nothing at all!” On that note, no sign of naked-guy this week… woo hoo!

A link to trail directions and map for the first leg can be found here,  for the second leg here, for the third leg here and for the fourth leg here.

 

 

One of many rock formations and Berowra Valley.

THE STATS

Start – Cp1
Start Time: 7:19am
Duration: 3:35:06
Finish Time: 10:54am
Distance: 15.32km
Average Pace: 14.02 min/km
Average Speed: 4.3 km/h

Cp1 - Cp2
Start Time: 10:56am
Duration: 4:20:02
Finish Time: 3:46pm
Distance: 14.47km
Average Pace: 17.58 min/km
Average Speed: 3.3 km/h

Cp2 – Cp3
Start Time: 4:33pm
Duration: 4:13:07
Finish Time: 8:47pm
Distance: 14.60km
Average Pace: 17.21 min/km
Average Speed: 3.5 km/h

Cp3 – Cp4
Start Time: 8:55pm
Duration: 2:37:50
Finish Time: 11:33pm
Distance: 9.03km
Average Pace: 17.29 min/km
Average Speed: 3.4 km/h

Total Time: 14:46:05
Total Distance: 53.41km

For a Google Earth file of this session, click here.

Friday, 7th August – Brooklyn to Apple Tree Bay

Raising the bar

This walk was our longest so far starting at Brooklyn and going through Cowan and Berowra before ending up at Apple Tree Bay just after 11pm with over 40km under our belts.

This is the toughest test we’ve given ourselves so far but thanks to the right combination of pre-walk training and meat pies, we managed to come though it well, even when being meters away from the car at Apple Tree Bay, Tony P. finds that his wallet has fallen out of his pack. So, about face and back up the trail to look for it for a few more kilometres before heading home without it. As luck would have it, a fellow Oxfam hiker picked the wallet up the following day and returned it with all of it’s contents intact.

We also walked by another naked guy, this time washing his undies in Jerusalem Bay… Brrrr… Not pleasant..

A link to trail directions and map for the first leg can be found here,  for the second leg here and for the third leg here.

  

Berowra Waters (again) and some (more) pretty flowers..

THE STATS

Start – Cp1
Start Time: 10:01am
Duration: 3:40:39
Finish Time: 1:51pm
Distance: 15.29km
Average Pace: 14.26 min/km
Average Speed: 4.2 km/h

Cp1 - Cp2
Start Time: 1:51pm
Duration: 4:52:59
Finish Time: 7:08pm
Distance: 15.17km
Average Pace: 19.19 min/km
Average Speed: 3.1 km/h

Cp2 – Cp3
Start Time: 7:35pm
Duration: 3:33:21
Finish Time: 11:08pm
Distance: 13.77km
Average Pace: 15.30 min/km
Average Speed: 3.9 km/h

Total Time: 12:06:59
Total Distance: 44.22km

For a Google Earth file of this session, click here.